On the Heels of De Wet
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The Intelligence Officer >> On the Heels of De Wet
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* * * * *
"Please, sir, can I speak to you a moment?" The Tiger stood in the
doorway of the hotel dining-room.
"Anything serious?" asked the Intelligence officer.
"I have made a discovery."
"Can you spare me, sir?" (_to the Brigadier._)
"For half an hour. I am going down to the commandant's office to see
the general. Meet me there in half an hour."
"What is it, Tiger?"
"I will now show you something which will open your eyes. Something
which will show you how this game is worked. It is only about two
minutes' walk from here."
As the Intelligence officer and the Tiger made their way down the main
street, it would have required no great strain upon the imagination to
have fancied that the town had recently been carried by assault, and
the victorious troops allowed the licence consequent upon street
fighting. Even in the few short hours of occupation debauchery had had
its way. Drunkenness is the worst attribute of irregular soldiering
upon five shillings a-day. If the Colonial has money he will drink.
Where the average white man greets a friend and acquaintance with a
hand-shake, the South African Colonial calls him to the nearest bar,
and they drink their salutation. When half-a-dozen Colonial Corps "off
the trek" meet in a wayside township, they turn it into an Inferno.
Here they were crowding in and out of the houses in drunken hilarity.
The townsfolk, delighted at their opportune arrival when Brand was at
their gates, ply them with the spurious spirit which passes for whisky
in South Africa. If the spirit is there, no amount of military
precaution will prevent the Colonial trooper from securing it. You
cannot place whole regiments--officers and men alike--under arrest.
And when a Colonial regiment is "going large," in the majority of
cases it would baffle any but an expert to distinguish officer from
man. And while young men in smasher hats fall over each other in the
streets, the sober British troops look solidly on and wonder. Some, it
is true, fall away with the rioters. But they are few. Discipline and
want of means buoy them at least upon a surface of virtue. Yet, be it
said to the credit of these roysterers in town, the man who drinks
the hardest in the afternoon will follow you the straightest in the
morning!
The Intelligence officer and the Tiger had arrived at a little cottage
on the outskirts of the town. A primitive yet pretty dwelling--a toy
villa of tin.
"Go in," said the Tiger.
The Intelligence officer knocked and entered. He was met with a smile
by the pretty Dutch girl with the great blue eyes, who had so played
upon his feelings at Richmond Road.
"Miss Pretorius!"
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Water dam or pool.
[18] When out with a column men were often weeks before they knew what
the Gazette had given them.
[19] Colloquial Hindustani--bullock hackney carriage.
[20] Boer method of assessing distances.
[21] Sitting-room.
[22] Village.
V.
A NEW CAST.
For the moment the Intelligence officer could ill disguise his
astonishment. Here, standing in front of him, was the girl who had
taught him his first lesson in staff jurisprudence. The memory of the
incidents at the farmhouse, her petulance with the Tiger, her tears
for her lover, had been almost effaced by the vicissitudes of the last
forty-eight hours. If he had ever thought of the girl at all, it had
been in the same spirit as a mariner recalls a passing ship, whose
shapely lines were barely distinguishable in the night. His surprise
was such that he could only marvel that while, travel-stained and
dishevelled, he had arrived at Britstown with an effort, she had
already reached that goal, and, to judge from the studied neatness of
her attire, had reached it with consummate ease. Her smile and
attitude as she held out her hand to her visitor expressed
satisfaction at the meeting--a satisfaction tempered with a
determination to show a front which should declare a full measure of
resistance. Taking advantage of his officer's surprise, the Tiger
discreetly withdrew.
_Intelligence Officer._ "Miss Pretorius,--how did you get here?"
_Miss Pretorius._ "Quite simply. Partly on horseback, partly in a Cape
cart."
_I. O._ (_recovering somewhat_) "Naturally; I did not anticipate that
you had walked. But with what object?"
_Miss P._ (_the corners of her pretty mouth sinking in defiance_) "I
might easily have walked, and arrived before a British column. As to
my object in coming here, surely your Africander spy has informed
you?"
_I. O._ "If you mean the Tiger, he has told me nothing!"
_Miss P._ "And may I also ask something,--What authority have you to
put me such a question? At the institution which prided itself in
teaching me--an Africander girl--the manners and customs of the
English, they were emphatic upon the impertinence of asking personal
questions."
_I. O._ "I must apologise, Miss Pretorius. But the circumstances are
hardly normal. We cannot get away from the fact that we are influenced
against our better natures by an unfortunate state of war."
_Miss P._ (_petulantly_) "Oh, the war! That is just like you
Englishmen--you paragons of manly virtue--you make the war a cloak for
all your sins. It is such an upright war, therefore in its furtherance
you can do no wrong--cannot even be unmannerly. It is this that has
made you so beloved in the Republics; but how does your attitude hold
good with me? I am a loyal British subject, living at peace with all
men in a British colony. What right, therefore, have you to catechise
me as to my goings and comings? I do not even live within the
legitimate area of your so-called just war. I am only exposed to its
rigours--that is, as far as the insolence of those who should be our
defenders affects us women--because you English, in spite of your
vaunted power and military magnitude, cannot defend us, your
Africander dependants, from a few simple farmers. Where is your
manhood, where the courtly bearing of the Englishman, of which I have
heard so much--and seen so little?"
_I. O._ "Really, Miss Pretorius, if I may say so, I think that you
exaggerate the case. Unfortunately we are at war. You claim
consideration on the score of loyalty. Are you astonished that I
should have mistaken your attitude towards us? Your two brothers only
yesterday were in arms against us. One is wounded, the other a
prisoner in our hands. Is it surprising that I regarded you as their
accomplice in rebellion?"
_Miss P._ "I am surprised at nothing that an Englishman may do. But
why should I be compromised because my brothers have taken up arms
against you. Am I not of an age to formulate opinions of my own? or is
it that you consider that we poor Africander girls have no
intelligence, that our opinions must of necessity be bound up in those
of our men-folk, that we have no mind above the duties of the drudging
_hausfrau_? No, sir; I am an Africander loyalist--more loyal by far
than the renegade white who brought you here. And if you wish to know
the reason of my presence at Britstown, I am not averse to telling
you, provided you will not claim to have the information as a right."
_I. O._ (_with a touch of penitence in his voice, which for a moment
caused a smile to flicker round the corners of the girl's mouth_) "Of
course, Miss Pretorius, I have no right. You will persist in
misunderstanding me."
_Miss P._ "It is a simple problem. I am loyal, as I have said; but I
am a daughter and sister first, patriot later. In a fit of meaningless
bravado, tempered perhaps by some compulsion from over the border, my
old father and brothers had joined a rebel commando. You, with a
naivete which I had hardly expected in you, and for which I liked you,
told me the objective of your column--information which meant
everything to me, and perhaps to you, for you looked as if you would
have liked to have bitten your tongue out after you had parted with
it. I, with the honest intention of saving my father and brothers from
you, rode out to them that night. I then knew nothing of Lotter's and
Hertzog's men. If it had not been for the fighting, I should be now
back again at Richmond Road. As it is, my poor wounded father in the
next room is sufficient reason for my presence here."
_I. O._ (_who, English-like, was all sympathy at once_) "Oh, it was
your father then that you brought with you in the Cape cart. I hope
that he is not badly wounded. May I see him?"
_Miss P._ "There would be no object in your seeing him, as he is at
present asleep. No; he is, not severely wounded. He is shot through
the shoulder,--luckily it has missed his lung."
_I. O._ (_with unaffected solicitude_) "I am indeed sorry for you,
Miss Pretorius; those last forty-eight hours have been full of trouble
for you. But I doubt if you know the worst!"
_Miss P._ (_suddenly paling, and losing for the moment her
self-control_) "The worst!--surely you have not burned our farm? You
are not burning farms in the Colony!"
_I. O._ "No, not your farm; but I am afraid your sweetheart has been
badly hit!"
_Miss P._ (_with evident relief and surprise_) "My sweetheart!"
_I. O._ "Yes; the guide whom we took from your farm. He tried to
escape, and was unfortunately shot."
_Miss P._ (_laughing outright_) "Oh, Stephanus! He is no sweetheart of
mine. How could he be? He is only a bywoner!"
_I. O._ "But you told me that he was when I first suggested taking him
with me!"
_Miss P._ "Did I? It was not the truth, then; it was only an addition
to the part I was then playing."
_I. O._ "How do I know that you are not still playing a part?"
_Miss P._ "If I am, then it is a very sad one. No; you may trust me
now. I have played my part, and if anything that I could do for you
would stop this dreadful war, I would gladly help you!"
_I. O._ "You can help me, if you will; but after what you have said
about my want of manners, I am afraid to ask you a question."
_Miss P._ "I have forgiven you that; and now that you do not claim the
right to question me, I do not mind answering you if I can!"
_I. O._ "How, if your object was to save your father, did it happen
that Lotter was informed of our presence at Richmond Road?"
_Miss P._ "I expected that you would ask that. I did not tell him
personally, nor would I in any circumstances have done so. But the
fact that I arrived in great haste in the small hours of the morning
had a peculiar meaning to the commando, and it was not necessary for
me to open my mouth. I daresay to-night there will be one hundred
Africander girls in the saddle in different parts of the Colony. When
the urgency is great, a girl is more reliable than a Kaffir. It is one
of our means of communication. There; is not that an admission worthy
of a loyal Africander?"
_I. O._ (_holding out his hand_) "Good-bye, Miss Pretorius."
* * * * *
It would have been difficult to analyse the Intelligence officer's
feelings as he strode back along the Britstown main street to keep his
appointment with his brigadier. He was at a loss to understand two
things,--the anomalism of his second meeting with the Pretorius girl,
and the latter's attitude towards the Tiger. He could not divest
himself of a feeling of suspicion that all was not quite as it
appeared. There is no walk in life which breeds distrust in one's
fellows so rapidly as that of military Intelligence. And although the
Intelligence officer had only formed an atom in this great structure
of British incompetency in South Africa for two days, yet sufficient
had been borne in upon him during this period to cause him uneasiness
as to the sincerity of motive in those that moved round him. It is
said that the only person that a race-horse trainer will trust is his
wife, and that as long as he trusts her he remains an unsuccessful
man. We cannot say what truth there may be in this ancient turf adage;
but we do know that administrative work successfully performed in the
Intelligence Department of an army in the field leads a man to place
the lowest estimate upon the integrity of his fellows. The first
lesson is of an inverse nature, and compels a man, however he may
dislike the procedure, to believe those who move about him to be
knaves, until he has had opportunity to test their honesty. Young in
his knowledge of the people against whom he had been warring for
eighteen months, the Intelligence officer was exceedingly puzzled at
the strange anomaly presented by the Africander girl he had just left.
He could not help feeling that this daughter of a nation which he had
led himself, if not to despise, at least to depreciate, had fathomed
him in two short interviews, while he had penetrated little beyond the
surface of her feminine attractions and lively wit. He was puzzled at
the outcome of his interview, even perhaps a little alarmed at the
manner in which he had been treated--shocked at the erroneous estimate
which he had formed of Dutch women after eighteen months in their
midst. But this rebuff had served its purpose: it had sown in him the
seeds of that appreciation of our enemy which will have to generally
exist if we are ultimately to live in peace and concord, united as
fellow-subjects, with the people of South Africa.
* * * * *
It was now already dark, and the Intelligence officer had some little
difficulty in finding the house in which the general had taken up his
headquarters. The main street was still full of revellers, bursting
with Colonial _bonhomie_, but strangely lacking in topographical
information. In fact it seemed doubtful if the general's house would
ever be found, and the weary Intelligence officer was rapidly losing
his temper, when chance again came to his aid. A horseman came
galloping down the street. A little man in civilian attire--all
slouch-hat and gaiter. He seemed to be in a desperate hurry, as he was
flogging his tired and mud-bespattered animal unmercifully with his
_sjambok_. It was a beaten horse; and just as it came level with the
Intelligence officer, it stumbled, half recovered itself, and then
fell heavily in a woeful heap. The Intelligence officer pulled the
little civilian on to his feet, with a soft admonition about the
riding of beaten horses. The civilian shook himself, and turned to his
prostrate horse with a curse. But the poor beast had no intention of
rising again. It had lain down to die.
"It can't be helped; the news I bring will be worth a horse or two
anyhow. I must leave it, saddle and all, until I have seen the
general."
"Do you know where to find him?" hazarded the Intelligence officer. "I
am looking for his house now."
_Civilian._ "Well, I ought to; I've not run a store in this town for
five years not to know my way about. But who may you be?"
_Intelligence Officer._ "I'm staff officer to one of the columns which
came in to-day. I've been trying to find headquarters this last ten
minutes."
_Civ._ "Come along with me. I must get there at once. I've just come
in from Houwater. I was sent out by the commandant to follow up Brand,
and I have located him and Hertzog. I tell you I have come in
fast--never went faster in my life. Devilish nearly got cut off. My
word, I bore a charmed life to-day. Well, here we are. I shall go
straight in. The new general doesn't know me, but he soon will. The
commandant knows me: he knows that when I come with news there is
something worth hearing."
The little civilian bounced up the steps and dived into the lighted
hall of the headquarter's villa, before orderly or sentry could stop
him. A tall Yeoman stepped up to the Intelligence officer, and
saluting with more dignity than alacrity said, "Beg your pardon, sir;
but I am the general's orderly, and he told me to tell you that he
would only be a few minutes here, and that if you wouldn't mind
waiting he would join you immediately."
Waiting for a general is a serious undertaking, and the Intelligence
officer was tired. Moreover, he did not know where the camp was, or
when he would be expected to take over from the chief staff officer of
the column. But on active service all these things work out in their
own time, so he just sat down on the whitewashed steps of the verandah
and lit a cigarette. The tall Yeoman orderly did likewise on the far
side of the entrance. The Intelligence officer smoked in silence for
some time, engaged in the occupation most welcomed by tired men on
service--thinking of better times--until the nightmare of the column,
the orders for the morrow, the supplies and the camp, broke in upon
his reverie.
_Intelligence Officer._ "Do you know where the camp is?"
_Orderly._ "Yes, sir; it is about half a mile from here."
_I. O._ "You can find your way there in the dark?"
_Ord._ "Yes, sir; it is straight down the main street, and then the
first to the left. It would be impossible to miss it."
_I. O._ "What do you belong to?"
_Ord._ "I don't quite know what I belong to now. I came out originally
with the 218th Company Imperial Yeomanry; but they have gone back
home."
_I. O._ "Then what are you doing out here now?"
_Ord._ "Well, you see, sir, I came to the general as orderly about
four months ago, and I liked being with him so much that I did not
rejoin the company. As a matter of fact, we were away down in Calvinia
District; I don't quite see how I could have got back to them, even if
the general would have let me go. I haven't seen the company since I
was wounded at Wittebergen seven months ago. I joined the general from
Deelfontein Hospital!"
_I. O._ "I hope that your billet has been kept open for you in
England."
_Ord._ "I sincerely trust it has, sir; but I have missed a season's
hunting. I don't intend to miss another if I can help it."
_I. O._ "The devil you don't. What do you do at home?"
_Ord._ "I hunt four days a-week in the winter, and in the----"
_I. O._ "I mean, what is your job?"
_Ord._ "I haven't much of a job, sir; I'm the junior partner in an
engineering firm, and as we do some very big things in contracts,
there isn't much left for me to do except amuse myself!"
_I. O._ "Then whatever made you come out in the ranks?"
_Ord._ "It suits me, sir. I am not fond of responsibility: besides, if
every one who could afford it had taken a commission in our company,
we should have been all officers, with no one to command!"
_I. O._ "I call it most sporting of you."
_Ord._ "No; not exactly sporting. It was no idea of sport that brought
me out here. It was a sense of duty. Were you out here, sir, during
the Black Week--the Colenso-Magersfontein period? You were. Then you
have not realised, and you never can realise, what we in England went
through during that period. I went down to my stables one morning, and
my groom came up to me and asked if he might leave at once. In answer
to my look of surprise, he said, 'It's this way, sir: I feel that the
time has come when we shall want every man who can ride and shoot to
defend the country. I can do both, and the country is not going to be
defeated because I can ride and shoot, and won't. I want to join the
Yeomanry!' I let him go, and thought over his estimate of the
situation all day. If the country's honour lay in my groom's hands,
how much more must it lie in mine--the employer of labour? I made up
my mind before dinner, told my wife before going to bed, and here I
am, sir."
Nor was this an extraordinary case. There must have been in South
Africa during the second phase of the war many hundreds of men--one
might almost say thousands--actuated by the same spirit, impelled by
the same feeling, as this rich contractor and his groom. Men who felt
that the nation had desperate need of their services; men who
voluntarily undertook the risks and perils of a soldier's life, not
from any hope of preferment, not from love of adventure or mercenary
advancement, but from true patriotism--a sacrifice to meet the
nation's call in the hour of her need. But that day soon passed. The
tide turned, and clash of arms ceased upon our own frontiers and
within our own dependencies, and the din of war sounded faintly from
the heart of the enemy's country. Then true patriotism failed; the men
who had gone forth with their country's acclamations returned as their
obligations expired. There were no patriots of the same class found to
take their places. Yet the exigencies of the struggle required even
more men than had been in the field when Lord Roberts made his extreme
effort to retrieve the earlier misfortunes. Then it was that we
committed another of those many errors in judgment which have marked
the conduct of the campaign. We believed that in December 1900 the
edifice of the Boer resistance was crumbling to its foundations,--that
it was like a mighty smoke-stack, already mined at its base, and but
requiring fuel at the dummy supports to bring the whole structure in
ruins to the ground. We called for the fuel. The cry went forth for
men--men--men. Any men; only let there be a sufficient quantity. The
war was over. Had not the highest officials said that it was over. The
recruiting-sergeant went out into the highways and hedges to collect
the fuel for Lord Kitchener's final operation. It mattered not the
quality--it was only quantity. The war was over. The gates of the Gold
Reef City would again be open. Then the mass of degraded manhood which
had fled from Johannesburg at the first muttering of thunder in the
war-cloud flocked from their hiding-places on the Cape Colony seaboard
and fell upon the recruiting-sergeant's neck. Mean whites that they
were, they came out of their burrows at the first gleam of sunshine.
Greek, Armenian, Russian, Scandinavian, Levantine, Pole, and Jew.
Jail-bird, pickpocket, thief, drunkard, and loafer, they presented
themselves to the recruiting-sergeant, and in due course polluted the
uniform which they were not fit to salute from a distance. The war
was over; there would be no more fighting, only a quick march to
Johannesburg, and disbandment within reach of the filthy lucre which
they coveted. And so new corps were raised, with spirit-stirring
titles, while old, honoured, and existing regiments were sullied
beyond recognition by association with the refuse and sweepings from
the least manly community in the universe. Such fuel could not even
clear the dummy supports at the base of the Boer resistance. It
refused to burn. It could never have burned in any circumstances.
These men had no intention of fighting. Their appearance in the field
gave new life to the enemy. New confidence, and free gifts of rifles,
ammunition, clothes, and horses. Men could not be found to command
them, for to place confidence in their powers meant professional
disgrace. These men had not come to fight. They had enlisted only to
reach Johannesburg, and they refused to fight. Surrender to them
brought no qualm or disgrace. They possessed no faculty sensible to
shame. Then the enemy hardened his heart. And who can blame him? He
had ever been told that the supply of British fighting material was
limited. He found these creatures in the field against him. He stepped
up to them, and disarmed them without an effort. Then he said, we have
exhausted their supply of real fighting men. They are now forced to
place this spurious article in the field. We will persevere just a
little longer. If we persevere till disease shall further destroy
their good men, we must win in the long-run. The error in judgment
which allowed of the enlistment of these men has perhaps done more
than anything else to prolong the war. If any doubts remain, let the
curious call upon the Government for a return of arms and ammunition
surrendered to and captured by the enemy between November 1900 and
November 1901, and then, if the answer be justly given, judge of the
necessity of arsenals for our enemy.
* * * * *
The brigadier had finished his interview with his superior, and the
clink of glasses had shown that the general had not sent him off
without a stirrup-cup. He came out upon the verandah, and called for
his orderly.
_Brigadier._ "Hullo, Mr Intelligence; I thought you were lost. Come
along here out into the road. I want to speak to you, but we must be
careful not to be overheard; this place simply teems with rebels.
(_They advanced into the broadway, the orderly following at a
respectful distance._) Now, look here, we are to have a big fight
to-morrow. You saw that funny little beggar in the hat. Well, he
wasn't playing at robbers, though you would never have known it. He
was really bringing the good news to Ghent--killing horses all the
way. He's a local Burnham, and passing good, according to the
commandant. Well, he's located Brand, Pretorius, and our old friend
Hedgehog[23] at Houwater, and we are going out to give battle. More,
they believe that De Wet has doubled back towards Strydenburg, and is
trying to link up with these Houwater gentry, as the latter have
collected horses for him. Now, our bushranging robber reports that
Brand has an outpost of thirty men at a farm on the Ongers River,
twelve miles from here, covering the Houwater-Britstown Road. We are
to take a surprise party out to-night and round them up. If we
succeed, we will run a very good chance of bringing off quite 'a show'
to-morrow. So we must get along now, and get out the invitations for
the tea-party. The 'Robber' is to meet us here in two hours, and the
old man has lent me fifteen of Rimington's Tigers, who are 'fizzers'
for this sort of _shikar_."
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